Meet Yanet & Candelaria Manzano | Studio Heart Event Planner & Designer Mother/Daughter Duo

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yanet & Candelaria Manzano and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yanet & Candelaria, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Our introduction to events was an unusual one. Twenty years ago, we suffered a devastating house fire and lost everything. We got a lot of help from The Red Cross to recover. Hence, to pay back and help other families in need, we decided to create a fundraising event that included Art, performances, and food. The event was a great success, and we both enjoyed the process of planning it. However, despite great feedback, going into event planning never entered our minds at that point. A year later, disaster struck again when a flood left us in the street with nothing but the clothing on our backs. So, after going through the recovery process again, we decided to come back stronger and, this time, plan a more significant fundraising event by adding a fashion show and music concert.

After experiencing loss over and over, we relied on the happy memories with family and friends and celebrations in our lives to remind us that life WAS beautiful and worth the effort to get up and try again. Planning those fundraising events was therapy at the time. It allowed us to tell our story and turn tragedy into beauty, giving birth to a lifetime passion for telling stories and creating beautiful core memories through event planning and design.

After that, Mom and I started learning about the event industry and its intricacies through event photography, establishing Studio Heart in 2004. After a couple of years of learning everything about weddings & events from the inside out, we felt ready to take on our destiny and become full-time event planners and designers. Eighteen years later, our passion for making every milestone celebration tell a unique story that creates a happy core memory for our clients still burns bright and true.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Art and a story are at the center of each of our events. Event design for us started as a need to tell our personal story, which formed the core of what then became Studio Heart Event Planning & Design. Our first step is always to get to know our client/clients personally, not only their style, personality, and wishes but the stories that define them. We then weave all those elements together and build the event visuals to illustrate their journey. From the floorplan to the plate setting to the centerpieces, each design decision has a direct thread to an element our client has shared with us.

We are intensely passionate, detailed, hands-on, and obsessive about creating events representing the person/people who inspired them. So each design we create comes to life for one day only, never to be repeated. Therein lies the magic that allows us to accomplish our original mission of designing fabulous events that create a core happy memory that remains an integral part of our clients for life.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Tallahassee is know for its natural beauty, so any trip would start with coffee and a pastry along with a walk with our dog in one of our local parks. We love cascade park or for a less city view Bradley’s Pond area. The drive through the canopies is gorgeous and the property is nature at its best in a quiet environment or visiting Maclay Gardens for a garden feel or Goodwood museum for a southern feel. Lunch would be a stop at Jeri’s Midtown Cafe followed by a stop at our favorite spot in the city Railroad Square for Art, shopping and hanging out with our favorite shopping stop The Other Side Vintage and all around the park is incredible art is perfect for a fun photoshoot. Early dinner would be Tapas at Casa Tapas & Cantina with amazing food then on to sunset drinks at Charlie Park and ending the night with some incredible music of which we have many but one of our favorite regulars is Jazz at Over Under Bar.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Our Studio Heart Family!!! Our clients are the core of our business and the fuel that gives our purpose in life meaning. They come to us and allow us into their world, trust us with their stories, dreams, and wishes and allow us full reign to bring them to life in the celebrations we create for them. We see our clients grow from newlyweds to families to business owners and career men and women and be a part of their milestones. Then, we get to do it all over again with their children, and their children’s children. For some of our oldest Studio Heart families, we have gone into 3 generation celebrations. There is no bigger honor or inspiration to us than that.

Website: http://studioheart.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheartofpossibility/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/studioheart/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHeartOfPossibility/

Image Credits
StudioHeart.com